


hot tteok and heartache

by childofthenight2035



Series: Put Your Glasses On [12]
Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Fluff, M/M, preschool teacher!Jinyoung
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24252181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childofthenight2035/pseuds/childofthenight2035
Summary: Jinyoung can't believe what he's seeing in his kitchen.
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung
Series: Put Your Glasses On [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685593
Comments: 17
Kudos: 163





	hot tteok and heartache

Jinyoung stares long and hard at what he sees in his kitchen, unable to process it.

Hyunjin is picking up various vegetables and examining them, an uncertain look on his face. He cautiously places them on a cutting board and slices them, fingers clumsy. A bag of rice cakes is thawing on the counter. He flashes Jinyoung an embarrassed smile when he spots him in the doorway, but doesn’t offer any explanation. There’s something boiling on the stove and Jinyoung’s almost afraid to ask, but he also doesn’t want to burn the apartment down. 

“What—what are you doing?” He asks, stepping inside carefully. Hyunjin looks from the stove to the knife in his hands like he doesn’t know what he should do next. 

“Um,” he says, choosing to stir whatever is in the pot, and Jinyoung realizes that the boy probably doesn’t know what he’s doing either. “I’m making tteokbokki.”

Jinyoung lets that sentence soak in his brain. “You’re making tteokbokki?”

Hyunjin hums, grimacing. “Well, I’m trying to, at least.” He goes back to his cutting board.

This still doesn’t answer Jinyoung’s real question. He’s never seen Hyunjin voluntarily cooking anything other than instant noodles and Jinyoung doesn’t encourage daily intake of that. He steps in front of the stove, peering curiously at the soup bubbling away. “ _Why_ are you making tteokbokki? I made sundubu jjigae and kimbap yesterday, it’s in the fridge?”

Hyunjin scoops up the vegetables and dumps them into the soup, poking the bag of rice cakes afterwards. “Yeah, I know. It’s not for me, it’s for Yeji.” Jinyoung has grabbed the spoon Hyunjin was using and begun stirring, when it sinks in. 

“Yeji?”

Hyunjin tears open the bag and glances around quickly. “Yeji’s upset,” he whispers, leaning closer to him. “She had this massive fight with her friend and now she’s crying. You know she loves tteokbokki. So I thought I’d make it for her.”

The sentimental part of Jinyoung melts at his concern for his twin, but the mother in him rears up and asks, “She’s crying? What was the fight about? Which friend?”

Hyunjin shrugs. “That Mia girl. I dunno what it was about, she didn’t tell me anything, either.”

He makes a small noise of understanding, reaching out for the spices. He’s made tteokbokki enough times he could probably make it in his sleep. It’s a pity Hyunjin hasn’t learnt it from his mother yet, seeing as she runs a restaurant. 

Jinyoung wordlessly helps him here and there, but for the most part, lets him struggle, not for the pleasure of seeing it, but because Hyunjin wanted to do it himself, for his sister. And Jinyoung is sappy enough to agree. 

(He’s definitely the one who saves it in the end, though.)

Jinyoung follows Hyunjin into the twins’ bedroom and puts down the bowl of steaming tteokbokki onto a desk. The boy jerks his head toward their bunk bed and he can see the shapeless lump of a blanket on the top bunk. Jinyoung smiles softly when he remembers the disagreement they had over who got the bottom bunk. Perhaps ‘disagreement’ was too mild a word. 

“Yeji-yah,” he calls, approaching the bed and climbing onto the bottom rung of the ladder. “Are you awake?” The blanket shifts a little. 

“No,” comes the muffled reply. Jinyoung huffs out a laugh. 

“Talk to us, Yeji, you’ll feel better.” He reaches out to pat the lump. “Tell us what happened.”

A noise of protest issues from under the wool despite his poking.

“Yeji,” he tries again, “your brother made you tteokbokki, come down and we can bitch about whatever happened.”

The squirming lump freezes and then, after a moment of scuffling, Yeji’s head emerges from a corner. “Tteokbokki?” She says hopefully. Jinyoung laughs out loud at how simple it was to lure her out and gestures to the desk where the bowl sits. Her eyes flash and as quick as a bunny, throws her blanket off, nearly kicking him in the face. 

He watches them bicker over the food with a fond smile on his face and thinks that no matter how much they annoy him, he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“Hyung, come have a piece,” Hyunjin says, and then his mouth is burned by hot tteok. He chews his way through it, mouth open. He notices that their pinkies are locked and his heart is full. 

“So, what happened, Yeji?” Jinyoung asks her, sitting down on the bed. 

Her face twists into a scowl, but she’s not prone to crying any more and he considers this an improvement. “You know my friend Mia?” He nods. Of course he does, it’s the same girl who blatantly stares at him whenever she comes over. He’s never really liked her, but he’s not going to admit that. “So she’s been dating this loser from the band, this _major_ jerk—”

“Wait, aren’t band kids like, nerds or whatever?” 

“Hyunjin, don’t—”

“What, you think only _jocks_ can be assholes?” Yeji fires back, glare levelled on her brother, who raises his hands in surrender. 

“Hey, don’t look at me like that!” he cries, “I’m not a jock; I’m only on the dance team!”

“Okay,” Jinyoung intervenes, “what about this asshole band kid?”

“Right, so he’s so clearly not a good guy,” Yeji continues, poking at the bowl with her chopsticks, “but Mia can’t see past his dick—and he’s been, like, manipulating her to get rid of all her friends that he doesn’t like, which includes _me_ , since I’ve been trying to get her to see him for what he is, and today when I got to class, everyone’s whispering about me and so Ryujin had to tell me that Mia was talking shit behind my back—”

“Whoa, whoa, breathe, Yeji,” Jinyoung says hastily before she chokes on her own lungs again. 

She waves his concern aside. “Anyway, so she’s been going around telling people I rigged the dance team auditions so Hyunjin could get in, which makes _no_ sense at all, like, honestly, why would I do _anything_ to make life easier for him? Besides,” she consoles her pouty twin, “he definitely doesn’t need my help to get in.” 

“So what did you do about it?” 

“I called her out on her bullshit, duh. Totally embarrassed myself in the hallway in front of everybody, but hey, least I told her to shove her—”

“Alright, that’s—that’s enough,” Jinyoung coughs out while Hyunjin sniggers. “This was the fight?”

She nods. “I told her—”

“Yeji.”

“—that— _no_ , I told her that until she apologized, I wasn’t going to be her friend anymore. And then she laughed and walked away.” Yeji sighs. “That’s probably not going to happen until she breaks up with him, and I don’t think that’s in the foreseeable future.”

Jinyoung can’t help but crack a smile at her plight. He’s missed being part of something like this. He’s missed the late nights and the gossip and sleeping in lectures. He misses his unfinished college life. He’s an adult now, with a stable job, and while he certainly doesn’t miss the stress and the confusion and the existential crises, he sometimes wishes he could have completed his degree. His life may have been totally different. 

But only _sometimes_. If the past had to happen for this present, then in a way, he’s happy.

He tunes back in to the twins speculating on how they would rig the auditions if they could have. Jinyoung shakes his head and stands up, gathering their utensils and the empty bowl to take it back to the kitchen. 

“You did the right thing, Yeji,” he says, bending to kiss the top of her head. “You shouldn’t keep people who don’t respect you in your life. And you,” he tells the boy, putting him in headlock and smooching him before he could wiggle away, “you’re a good brother, making tteokbokki and all.”

Hyunjin flushes, and pries his arms from around his neck. Yeji rolls her eyes.

“Don’t lie, oppa, I know it was you who made it—ow!”

There’s his cue. Exit, stage left.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to elaborate on the twins and jinyoung and their sweet little relationship so this happened


End file.
